Chase the Sun
by Libek
Summary: Early academy days. Hinamori-centric, with her thoughts on the man who would become her world.


He was almost a decade too late to be the first Shinigami she had ever seen, and Momo really should have been thoroughly disillusioned. Hadn't she grown up in the first district, where low-ranked officers patrolled almost weekly to keep the peace? Wasn't she herself attending the Shinigami academy, and weren't her classmates there like any ordinary teenagers, loud and wild and even prone to fits of giggles sometimes? And yet, they would all become Shinigami someday.

She had known better than anyone that they were not intimidating gods of death, nor the elegant unearthly creatures she had once mistaken them for. They made sound when they walked, just like anyone; they got rice all down their robes when they ate too fast, just like anyone; the older students even got drunk and sometimes knocked on her door in the middle of the night because they couldn't find their own. Just like anyone.

But he was different.

Momo remembered the way the crowd had gathered, how surprised she had been by their silence and seeming respect for whatever or whoever they were all watching. She remembered the voice of the student who had told her it was a captain of one of the Thirteen Protection Squads, passing through on his way into the capital. And ruefully, she remembered how she had thought nothing more meaningful than, _A captain? I wonder what they look like,_ and how only the press of other bodies had carried her to the front -- how embarrassed she had been to almost stumble into the path of someone so important, and how that embarrassment had completely vanished when she caught sight of him.

The first thing she noticed was the way that he moved, steady, and almost relentless. As if he were something more than a man, something inevitable, like death itself. Then he came closer, and she felt his reiatsu, rolling through the air towards her with such power that she felt sure it would fill her lungs and suffocate her, bring her to her knees in tears, but it didn't. Instead the touch of his spirit was a warm breeze on her face, unbelievably gentle for something so strong.

It didn't seem real, it didn't seem possible, and for an instant the years melted away and Momo found herself four years old again, clutching at Mrs. Hino's skirts and pointing wide-eyed at the strange and wonderful creature patrolling their streets. She wanted to run back through the crowd and clutch at Kira-kun's robes or grab Abarai-kun's hand and cry, "Look, look, it's a Shinigami! A real-life Shinigami! Have you ever seen anything so incredible?"

A real-life captain.

Oh god, how she wanted him to turn, just for a fraction of a second, and look directly at her.

He had been out of sight for more than a minute before she realized she was still holding her breath, waiting for it. Hoping for it. The faint tingle of his reiatsu stayed behind, shivering over her skin, but he had never turned his head.

"Who was that?" she whispered, to no one in particular.

It was a boy who answered, just another student she didn't know, but she recognized her own awe in his voice. "Captain Aizen Sousuke, and his lieutenant, Ichimaru Gin. They're from the Fifth Division."

She hardly heard the second name, just as she had hardly seen the second man. She would come to regret that, much too late, but the important thing to her then -- the only important thing -- was the man in the white haori. Captain Aizen.

Before that moment, she had thought the only difference between a captain and his lieutenant, between them and the other seated officers, was power. Of course the captains would all be older, and maybe less silly because of that, but never once had she imagined someone like this. For the first time, it dawned on her that they might all achieve the rank, but only a precious few of them would ever really become _Shinigami_. Only a precious few of them would ever move as he had moved, or feel as he had felt.

Briefly Momo wondered if she would be one of them -- if she really had what it took -- and wasn't sure. The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth, coppery like blood. She had been invisible to Captain Aizen as a student; he was so special, so impressive, that he probably couldn't even see the _seated officers_ below rank four or five. And she couldn't bear the thought of forcing him to look at one. She would be like the dirt, only an insect beneath his heel, if she couldn't become a proper Shinigami.

And just like that, the doubt vanished. She would be one of them. She would join the Fifth Division. Shiro-chan didn't think she meant it, or maybe just didn't think she could manage it, but she did and she would. Even if -- even if she failed to be -- worthy of his notice, she would at least be near him, and that was something...

So when the day of their first field exercise came, she was more excited than nervous. She had heard they would be facing dummy Hollows -- real combat, or as close to it as the instructors would let first-year students come -- and it had seemed like the perfect chance to prove, at least to herself, that she was good at more than just taking tests and hitting paper targets.

And when she had found herself on the same team as Abarai-kun and Kira-kun, two of the top students in their class, her excitement only grew. The three of them were all very good in their own ways, and if the grades meant anything at all, wasn't it possible that one of them already had whatever it took, whatever it was that made a real Shinigami? She had thought, maybe she would be able to see it, maybe if she didn't have it yet she would be able to learn something from one of them and gain it. One of their supervisors, Hisagi-senpai, he already had a squad assignment, so it was possible -- in only six years, maybe she would find herself where he stood now, a crowd of eager first-years staring up at her with shining faces, the Fifth Division waiting when she finished her last class...

Maybe, maybe, maybe. The hope in her heart was swelling almost painfully.

For a team that had assembled by chance, the three of them turned out to work very well together, and they made their kills with ease. Abarai-kun even joked about wanting to take on the real thing. The mood was light, they were all in high spirits, everything was going so well. She looked forward to the scoring, to Hisagi-senpai's assessment of their work, to the bright future stretching out before them.

Then the screaming started, and Momo realized that fighting dummy Hollows was nothing like real combat, because in what should have been a safe zone there were now real Hollows, _Huge_ Hollows, and her sluggish mind could remember nothing from their description in the textbook or Professor Oounabara's lessons except the dull sound of his voice when he had told them that first-years should really just run away with their tails between their legs and let the adults handle it--

Which she would have done, and gladly, only--

Only the nearest thing they had to an adult was Hisagi-senpai, and he was bleeding, his friends all dead, and she couldn't just leave him there, she had to go back, and she was relieved when Abarai-kun and Kira-kun followed her, relieved because there were four of them now and that had to be better odds, until the air rippled around them and instead of one or two or even three Huge Hollows there were ten or maybe twenty, and none of them would ever be Shinigami of any rank because they were all going to die right here--

_This is wrong, this is wrong, it wasn't supposed to be this way._

Shiro-chan was right, she _was_ an idiot. What had she really thought the three of them could do, when Hisagi-senpai was supposed to be the best of them, when the stink of death was thick in the air and the Hollows kept appearing and Kira-kun was screaming in a way that threatened to tear her apart and she herself was so, so afraid that she couldn't move a muscle?

But she had forgotten that Captain Aizen made no sound when he walked.

He could have said anything, and for hours afterwards Momo tried to put herself in his place, a powerful captain come to save the skin of a few insignificant children; she wasn't sure what she would have said, but she knew it wouldn't have been, "Sorry for the wait. We've come to assist you."

It would be years before she fully understood that, however mortified she might feel as she cowered at his feet, Captain Aizen would never look down on her. With his eyes like warm amber, with his impossibly gentle voice and strong hands, he would always lift her up instead to stand beside him, as if she belonged there.

When he said they had done well to persevere so long, she reminded herself that he must have meant it for all of them, but the hand that settled in her hair, the long tapered fingers and the slight stroke of his thumb, that was hers, undeniably hers, and when he told them that everything would be fine now, that they could relax and leave the rest to him and his lieutenant, she could not quite believe it, but--

But he was looking at--

_He was looking at her._

The battle was over in a matter of seconds, a blur of noise and sound, a brilliant light that sliced through the darkness again and again and Captain Aizen's strong back as he reached out and crushed the last of their assailants with his bare hand, the same hand he had set so gently on top of her head. She watched closely but hardly saw any of it, and this time she knew she was holding her breath.

He was amazing, the most astonishing thing she had ever seen, and in his silence he had been graceful, as he dealt effortlessly with Hollows who would have slain them all he was powerful and impressive, but when he smiled -- when he smiled like that, as if it were a secret just for her...

The word was _beautiful_. He was beautiful. His eyes, his dark hair loose and curly and just a little wild, just a little untamed, the line of his jaw and bridge of his nose -- they would have made him good-looking, she might have even said quite handsome, but that smile made him something more. That wonderful smile, slow and warm and full of indiscriminate, boundless compassion. She saw him in her mind's eye kneeling in the dirt with a tiny ant balanced carefully on the tip of one finger, caring every bit as much for it as he did for her, for Abarai-kun and Kira-kun and Hisagi-senpai.

Then he turned his head and met her eyes and Momo realized she was staring, open-mouthed like a fish -- and worse, that she couldn't look away. Numbly she found herself thinking, if he would only take off his glasses, they were black and thick and broke up the clean lines of his face. He was beautiful even with them, and without them--

"Sir," Hisagi-senpai began stiffly, cutting off her presumptuous thoughts. "I'm so sorry you had to come all the way out here just for us." He must not have been able to see very well through the blood running down his face, but she could tell he really meant his apology. He felt it, too -- that this man was too good, too important, to be bothered with something as trivial as the impending death of a few petty students.

But Captain Aizen only smiled. "Hisagi Shuuhei, isn't it? I've heard so much about you. They say you're the brightest pupil the academy has seen in years. I would never be able to explain your death to Captain Tousen, so I'm afraid I had little choice in the matter."

It took her a long moment to realize he had just made a joke -- humor was a _human_ thing, and he seemed so much more than human, so much better -- but Hisagi-senpai wasn't laughing, either. "You... know my name, Captain Aizen?"

"I do."

She didn't want to feel jealous, she didn't, but she couldn't quite help it, and flushed darkly when he turned to gaze at the rest of them. Suddenly she was very much aware of her still-ragged breathing, her simple student robes, the little cuts on her palms and the dirt or worse on her clothes. How could he see her? Why wasn't she even more invisible to him now than she had been on the sidelines that day? Surely his eyes would pass over her, he wouldn't see her standing there, and then he would leave with his lieutenant in tow, as silent as he had come for them...

But he didn't. "I'm afraid, however," he said instead, "that his is the only name I know. And that puts me at quite the disadvantage with you three."

Abarai-kun introduced himself first, stammering and looking at his feet. Kira-kun bit his lip and whispered his name to the sky above. It was made all the more embarrassing because after each of them finished speaking Captain Aizen somehow found something kind to say; hadn't Kira-kun's entrance exam been the highest-scoring that year, and wasn't Abarai-kun the one who could demolish a practice dummy in under two seconds with the simplest of wooden swords?

When her turn came, Momo hesitated. She could feel her name in her throat like a bubble, and she wanted to say it, she wanted him to know so badly, wanted him to remember her. But what memory could her name possibly stir in someone like Captain Aizen? She did well on the tests, but hers weren't the highest marks in the class, and she was very proud of her kidou abilities, but half the time Kira-kun outstripped her there...

Finally she lowered her eyes and said, "I'm nobody, Sir."

She could feel his gaze on her, considering, and then he told her, so soft and so kind, "I'm afraid that isn't something I can call you. Not when you've been so very brave tonight. A nobody would never have been able to face Hollows of that class, not when she's only in her first year at the academy. I'll need a name, even if it's only a little one."

"Hi..." She couldn't speak, had to swallow and wet her lips to make the sound come out. "Hinamori Momo, Sir." And then she couldn't bear it any longer and had to sneak another glimpse of his face.

_If only he would take off his glasses, without them--_

Without them, she thought unbidden, he might have been almost too wonderful to look at. Like one of those mythical creatures, where the force of his terrible beauty could blind or kill or turn you to stone.

The smile on his lips was, if anything, even warmer. "I'll be expecting great things of you," he said, and again she reminded herself that it must have been meant for all of them, but in her mind she still heard him whisper, _Hinamori-kun_.

He was almost a decade too late to be the first Shinigami she had ever seen, but he really might as well have been.

This time, when she went to visit Shiro-chan, she didn't regale him with grand plans to join the Fifth Division and become a Shinigami under Captain Aizen. She couldn't even pretend to want something that simple now. He had looked at her, he had _seen_ her, and the way her whole being thrilled just at the memory of it told her that she would not be able to bear it if he never glanced her way again. Just being near him was no longer enough.

So she would become a seated officer on his squad, and she would rise through the ranks one by one, defeating her predecessors if she had to. She would become his lieutenant.

But she didn't tell Shiro-chan that either. Not just yet. Because he would only roll his eyes at her, and really, she didn't want this fluttery feeling in her heart to be spoiled by his sarcasm.

Like a pleasant dream, she wanted to hold onto it -- Captain Aizen's fingers in her hair, the soft curve of his lips, the scent of him when he came close enough -- for at least a little while longer.


End file.
